Tempest (#1 Destroyers Series) Read Online Free

her, not even caring that
she'd finally talked back to her father and was sure to get
grounded later. “There any doctors here?”
    Others echoed her question up and down the
hall. A chubby woman made her way through the wall of onlookers.
“I’m a nurse. Let me see.” She took Janelle’s place and took Vortex
Guy’s pulse. Her face relaxed, and Janelle could sense shoulders
slumping and breath being released all around her.
    A stiff breeze blew down the hall, ruffling
Janelle’s hair. The guy opened his eyes, which darted back and
forth like a terrified animal’s. “I…I…” He squeezed them shut,
curling into a fetal position.
    Phew. So he wasn’t dying. Janelle opened her
mouth to soothe him or at least ask a dumb question, but no words
came out. What did you say to someone who’d just appeared out of an
eight-foot-tall waterspout? Hi. How’s Oz? Leslie was going
to get a kick out of this story later.
    “Close the door,” a woman called from down
the hall.
    A squeak followed as someone pulled the
double doors shut. Rain beat against the building, but the wind
seemed to have lost its punch. The storm was dying, as if this
boy's appearance had sucked the life right out of it. At least one
thing was going right.
    Static cut over the man on the radio. “Gary
has now been downgraded to a tropical storm, with maximum wind
speeds of seventy miles per hour. It may be downgraded yet again to
tropical depression status within a few hours. Now we are beginning
to receive damage reports…”
    Vortex Guy winced as if the nurse had given
him a shot. “Turn…that off. Please.”
    Janelle turned the radio off as she leaned in
for another glimpse of the gray spiral. But her dad had pulled down
his sleeve enough to hide it, and his shoes appeared next to her, a
silent warning against trying to look again. A salty aroma hit her
nostrils, sending a strange tingle through her body. Had this guy
just crawled out of the ocean or something? But that didn’t make
sense since it was miles away.
    “What were you doing out there?” Janelle
asked, but still he didn't open his eyes. His head fell to the
side, revealing a cute mole on the side of his nose.
    “Leave him alone, Janelle.” Her father tugged
her away, taking her place at his side. He lowered his voice to a
barely audible level as he spoke to Vortex Guy. “I know it tires
you out. Rest a while.”
    Janelle shook her head. She must not have
heard him right. Her father must have said, you must be
tired out or something along those lines. Before Janelle
could ask him, Ed appeared at his side. “I’ve called the
ambulance,” he said. “They’ll come out as soon as things calm
down.”
    A giggle rose up in her throat, and she
wasn't sure why. The stress of the day was starting to get to her.
She held back a joke about having them take her dad to the mental
hospital while they were at it. Or her.
    Her dad straightened up, speaking with the
same authority as the man on the radio. “The storm’s done and it’s
falling apart. They should get here not too long from now.”
    An occasional gust made the windows whistle,
but they were weaker, mere strong breezes instead of roars. Good.
The whole storm had given up its will to live, and she wasn’t going
to argue with it.
    Sirens approached and cut off. A moment
later, the ambulance backed towards the double doors, lights
flashing. The crowd pressed themselves to the walls as the
paramedics wheeled in the stretcher to take away Vortex Guy and his
marking that was just like hers.
     
    * * * * *
     
    Janelle rolled down the truck window, gaping
at the damage as the muggy air crept over her face. Her stomach
grew upset at the sight of it. This was so much different than
seeing it on TV. On television, at least, there was some distance
that made it unreal somehow. Now, that protective wall had come
down.
    Much of Palm Grove looked like a bomb had
exploded right above it. The destruction wasn't as bad as
Andrina's, nowhere